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The Supas
Prologue Mark watched the neon jade and tangerine swirls of a wormhole, sitting in his command chair. Life seemed to never slow down enough. He knew that it seemed to be that way for everyone, but he knew that it was probably for him. He sometimes wondered if he or any of the Supas would ever be able to retire. It seemed, a lot of the time that they were the only thing keeping the Alliance of Independent Systems together. Even defeating the tyrannical Academic Empire has seemed easier at times. But the lack of fatalities in these conflicts was well worth his frustration. He and the other Supas had seen more deaths than had ever been intended for any human being to see, then again the time when they were classified as humans was probably long passed. "Admiral, we are coming out of the wormhole above Gedure." The orange and green turned to black with white specks. And a giant asteroid covered in mining facilities and other signs of long ago industrialization. In orbit around the planet was a massive ship. "A Halen-class Dreadnought is above Gedure. It looks like the Conquest, sir. They're hailing us." "Transfer it to my chair, lieutenant." A beautiful, but hard-faced woman appeared on the arm of his chair. She quickly lost all expression that suggested anything of the latter. "Angela. How did I know this would end up involving you? You can't just go to near defenseless worlds and use their distress beacons. This isn't the empire that allowed people of influence to do whatever they wanted anymore. What do you want?" "Well how else am I supposed to get your attention, Mark? You would never come to help just me," she teased. Her choice of attire combined with her carefully sculpted figure suggested her intention was to emphasize her femininity and to garner certain attention. And he wasn't one to give that variety of attention. "Maybe if you didn't do this so often we would come to help you when you asked for it," he explained as if he were doing a boring and tedious chore. "Like you would ever come to help the Halen's former flagship, and his favorite Death Trooper." "Enough. What do you want?" "Always so down to business-" she saw the look on Mark's face and chose to not finish the thought. Her face lost it's thrill seeker expression. "I need to talk to you. In person. Alone." "Angela, I'm not in the mood for this. If you wish to play around with a man and his-" he was interrupted by a once-again playful quip. "Men. Only think about one thing. No. That is not what I meant," once again the mortally serious attitude reappeared. "I'm serious, Mark. Something has... Changed. I will be coming over in a lander." "Don't try anything. I will have no regrets in your expiration." "You know me too well, Mark. I can count the ones who have lived so long doing so on one hand. But no tricks. Angela, out." Chapter 1 "WHAT!?" roared one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. "Why is SHE coming on THIS ship? Do you know what she has done? To us? To everyone we cared about?" "I don't believe she ever did anything directly, Brett," Mark excused. "How about hunting us, Mark? Does that mean anything to you?" "She never killed any of us." His brother shook his head at the excuses. They both knew that if she had the chance, she would not have hesitated in the slightest to kill any of them. Still, for some reason Mark felt that he had to talk to her. "But this is all beside the point. She is the leader of a major civilization. They are a part of the Allied Independent Systems. We have to treat her and all of them as such." Brett could only glare. Though he didn't like it, he knew Mark was right. There technically wasn't any reason they should ignore her request. She had accepted the defeat of her beloved Empire, and accepted it honorably at that. Cooperative would be the best word to describe her conduct since taking the reigns of the fragmented remains of the Academic Empire. "Think, Brett. What does she have to gain from this? Getting a shot at one of us? She knows that each of us can take her in straight fight. And we are not seeing her by ourselves anyways. She also knows this. I know she wasn't lying. Have I ever been wrong?" "Ok, I can't say I have a bad feeling about this, but this is your call. I'll back up your decision." They arrived in the landing bay. A Unirium-class Lander glided to a float and then nestled down on the polished floor of the landing bay of the Freedom. The ships showed the magnificent flare that the Academic hierarchy had showed for itself. And the extreme concern for personal safety. The ramp hissed and puffed of depressurization, and lowered. Angela, flanked by a man in Death Trooper armor who held his helmet under his arm, strode out, in all her jumpsuited glory. "Angela, so glad you could make it. You wouldn't mind if we took this party where the neighbors won't hear, do you?" Brett grinned, knowing that Angela had no choice in the matter. "Of course not," Angela put out with a forced smirk. She knew just as well as Brett. "Good. Come this way. Apparently, we have much to discuss." Mark welcomed, playing the part of host. He and his brother led Angela and her solo entourage to the conference, where the rest of the Supas were waiting. Mike was leaning against the table, with his arms crossed. Ben was sitting to his left, and Dan was seated a seat away from his right. Tony was seated a few seats down to the right of Ben. They all silently looked up at Angela, their blank eyes cold and annoyed. Angela surprised Mark, and he sensed shame. "I know that we have had our... disagreements before, in the... past. I just want all of you to know that I don't expect forgiveness. I'm here to make up for my... mistakes." Mark didn't need to read their thoughts to know that they stood unshakable against her plea. "Listen, please. I know I can never give back what I've taken, but I'm trying. This isn't for me, its for the galaxy." Mike's eyebrows furrowed, "Mark, what is she talking about?" Mark was surprised that they would think he would know anything about whatever Angela was talking about. "Ask Angela." All of their eyes turned to Angela. "Like I said, it's the fate of the galaxy." She paused. She unzipped a pocket on her waist and pulled out a datachip. She inserted the chip in a console on the table. "We received these images from our deep space intel outposts." Ships appeared on the large screen on the wall. They did not resemble anything any of the Supas had seen before. "As you can see, there have been several sightings in several systems." She clicked through several of the images. "And they are hostile." Picture of the ships firing projectile and energy based weapons on planetary defense ships flashed on the screen. Finally, an image of one of the ships with some sort of grappling mechanism deployed in a Sabre-class Gunship appeared on the screen. "The ships did not communicate any option to surrender. They destroyed or captured any vessel they could. No mercy." "We were beginning to take substantial losses. They had only engaged us in small skirmishes. A relatively large band of pirates. We thought they were pirates. One of their ships was damaged in a raid. It was leaving a heavy exhaust trail. We followed it. We brought out the big guns to scare them off. We caught them off guard. Still, there was heavy losses on both sides. We had to retreat. A fifth of our fleet. Gone. And their losses didn't deter them one bit." **** "So what? You're saying that some pirates kicked your tail. That's not hard to believe at all. We weren't more than a band of pirates when we..." Dan pointed out, the entire group having not deviated from their callous dispositions. "And you're asking us for help fixing your problems?" Ben asked in unbelief. "Like I said before, this isn't about me, or the ragged remains of the Academic Empire. It's about the entire galaxy." Angela looked down at the conference table. "Our intelligence reports suggest that this unknown entity does not plan on making a career of raiding deep space outposts." "Are you serious? You expect us to believe that some 'unknown entity' just appears out of nowhere; starts raiding some backwater, hinky-dinky outposts; wipes the floor with one of your fleets; and is going to take over the galaxy," Mike continued his accusatory rant, and turned to face the rest of the Supas. "None of us can honestly believe any of this nonsense. Especially coming from her," he finished, his finger pointing at Angela. "Angela. We must agree with Mike. Given your past history, and the, to be honest, outrageousness of your story, we have to see this for ourselves. That is leaving out Congress. How do you expect us to convince them of an outlandish story with the only proof coming from, formerly, one of our worst enemies? They probably wouldn't believe it if we saw it." Mark said. "Well, I have to try. I will go before Congress then."***** The Supas were suprised by The Supas all displayed smiles. As if they had waited their whole life for that moment, but then were reminded of what it had cost them. Chapter 3 The Freedom fired out of its wormhole. Masculinia ahead, a bright, green jewel with a healthy amount of machinery dotting its exterior. Mark heard the lieutenant announce their arrival. "This the MIPS Freedom. Coming for scheduled arrival at Masculinia with precious cargo." "This is Masculinia HQ coming in for MIPS Freedom. You have clearance for orbit." "Thanks, HQ. Freedom out." Precious cargo. If the vast majority of Masculinians knew what exactly was so precious many incumbents would be losing their jobs. But their wasn't time for explanations. If what Angela said was true, then it was necessary to keep the truth from the public. No matter how displeased they would be if they found out. The public's favor for being war heroes didn't take you very far, then again what did? He heard the door whoosh open and heard a cacophony of booted feet herded into his into his ears. He turned to them. They still looked upset, but how could he blame them? Mark had always been able to forget his motions and act objectively during very situations. It had proved a useful talent in his line of work. He just wished the others could do the same this time. The weight of the consequences if they failed this time still had not fully hit him. He could not imagine it if it ever did. Nor did he care to try. "So boss man,